I wonder what the next war will be in 2013? I'm not talking about the kind of war hinted at above (which makes me wonder why I chose that image - but to be honest everything else seemed to involve bodies all over the place or mushroom clouds), the likes of which we will no doubt find (if we look hard enough around tales of woe in America) all over the globe betwixt developing countries where people die in their millions without ever hitting the media headlines.

No, I'm thinking about the kind we hear about so often from politicians and policy-makers;

War on DrugsWar on PovertyWar on ChristmasWar on TerrorWar on Want

I'm hard pressed to conclude that any of these 'wars' have come anywhere close to being won. But, of course, that is probably not the point of their existence. These so-called conflicts are (in my opinion) invented for a much more prosaic reason; namely in order to strengthen or renew a political party's grip on power. They are nothing more than expressions of intent - whether backed up by financial resources or not - designed to make the (let's be blunt here) rather uninformed and shallow-thinking voters believe that something - anything is being done about the major issues of the day.

Using my favourite whipping boy (because its such a never ending source of ammunition), the USA as an example; frequent declarations of 'war' on intangibles have seemingly succeeded for many years in diverting the voting public from the issues which actually affect the well-being of the nation community. Perhaps the two biggest ones in recent years gave been the war on drugs and the war on terror. For the record I find it hard to type those phrases without a capitalized "OH PLEASE!" after each. Although the USA has probably declared war (of various scales) on more countries than any other nation in the past fifty or sixty years, it never seems to tire of politicians using the "w" word to describe 'strong' policy directions. What a strange word to use - a word which by its very nature precludes cooperation or understanding or even mercy.

The 'war on drugs' is simply ridiculous - despite the terminology, there can never be a victory.The 'war on terror' - similarly stupid in conception and impossible to execute properly. Perhaps they might try a different tactic and withdraw their military machine from foreign territories across the globe - that might cool things down a little, but for a paranoid society, I would assume that this is not an option.

Both 'wars', waged by the the 'richest' country on earth (i.e. the country that has borrowed more money from itself than almost all the others combined and now finds itself up to its ears in debt to China) are abject failures, and unless abandoned, will never be brought to a successful conclusion. Billions, if not trillions of dollars are pumped into these campaigns, yet there is no sight of a 'victory ' - how long did it take to find Bin Laden? And once found, he still presented so much of a political threat that he was summarily executed despite the evidence being that he was unarmed. This action, as much as anything else, illustrates that these 'wars' are phoney - political in concept and execution.

In the meantime, at a (small 'c';) conservative estimate, while all these resources are used in largely pointless and wasteful activities there are between forty five and sixty million people in the USA on or beneath the poverty line, and without adequate medical coverage. Oh yes - there is supposed to be a war on poverty too...that one also not going too well then? Probably because it is the lowest profile and worst funded.

No doubt we will still hear the word 'war' issuing forth from politician's lips in order to make themselves seem strong leaders and therefore electable and re-electable; but there is one 'war' I would dearly like to see fought for real, and comprehensively won.